The next ten years the operator could be as hectic as the first ten

Tonight, it is Free to aqua regia. The alternative operator celebrates ten years and rented for the occasion the Palais omnisports of Bercy, 10,500 seats. Clients and employees will be able to attend a show of Gad Elmaleh, then a "free-rock party" with Richard Kolinka, Raphaël or Louis Bertignac featured. A Windows closed. "It is the first time that you are going to meet as many subscribers", welcomes Olivier Viagi, editor in Chief of the information universe Freebox site. "We hope that this mobilization will boost the candidacy of Iliad at the fourth mobile license."The community of "day", are the 4.3 million Internet subscribers in the Group since the redemption of the access provider Alice. Among them, a hard core of fans of the Free model, who await each innovation since 1999 and spurred the creativity of the group.

At the time, users were "guinea pigs" developers and had to help each other to solve their problems. Since then, the Iliad group became the fourth operator of Telecom France and its subsidiary Free number two of Internet access, with 25 of market share. The company has been introduced on the stock market and weighs EUR 4.15 billion. The net sales of Iliad in the first half rose by more than 40 over one year, to EUR 970 million, for a gross operating surplus of EUR 308 million, an increase of 18. In ten years, the operator has created some 5,000 jobs with call centres. A service worthy of the name was created. In short, Free was able to settle in the public and leave the sphere of computer hackers.

Stroke of genius

And yet, this now well established actor retains a reputation as a spoiler in the oligopoly of telecoms. He did not receive any subsidy, but took advantage of the deregulation of the market to set aside the award. His stroke of genius was to rely less on France Telecom infrastructure possible, forced to open its lines to competition. Free has built its own network across the country and the local ADSL "unbundling" process (more than 4 subscribers high-speed 5 are unbundled), which allowed him to keep the maximum margin for itself. The history of the group is spotted innovations on which all of the operators has been forced to reposition itself: first the free subscription to Internet low flow, then very quickly the package "triple play" to 29.99 euros, unchanged from 2002 despite the addition of many services (see illustration).

Xavier Niel, the founder and shareholder of Iliad control, become rich, like nothing so much that cause these failures. His great pride "5 Persons who were there at the beginning are still there." Our difference is that we like to do our job, it does not just for the money. "Next thrills, for Free, it is of course mobile telephony, with promises the group, a"truly revolutionary"offer This opportunity is even more interesting that the transition to very fixed broadband, says David Strauch, Oddo Analyst: "fiber can generate market share gains and improve the Free margin in the medium term, but way less"explosive"than mobile, which is a completely new market."Since the small presidential sentence on "usefulness" of a fourth operator that break the price, Free seems less insured to carry this license. The next ten years the operator could be as hectic as the first ten